West of Eden

A Post-Apocalyptic Story by angerbda

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We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.

―Voltaire

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He was about to regret his impulsive nature. He had insisted on taking the mission, though, not knowing it would be the end of him. He was petrified as he looked Death in the eyes.

Death had green eyes.

*-*-*-*

All had been going wrong since the beginning of his adventure. Mac, though, had left the stardust cluster with hope and a thirst for adventure. The deal was simple: he would go on Earth, look for Eden and come back with the news. Would he accomplished all this within a couple of months' time, he would receive a thousand star credits on his account. It would be just enough to cover for his sister's hospital bill, with a bit of an extra for any other emergency. Or to last until the end of the year.

The year on the stardust cluster was slightly longer than what it was on Earth, he had learned once, as he was a young'un wearing out his pants on the school's benches. This is when he started to dream of the Big Blue and of adventure. He wanted to be a space pirate, then a star-border patrol officer. However, child's dream rarely translated into reality. Sliding from one job to another, nowadays he roamed between the stars, guiding special cargos within the intricate maze of the asteroid belt.

He was a Graber, a Garbage-Removal-Asteroid-Belt-er.

There was no glory in the profession, though there was a purpose. In the small clump of asteroids, any fragment remaining in the outer space could be fatal. Pieces of the former space glory ended up in the precarious installation the remnants of humanity had maintained on the surface of the big rocks in orbits near Neptune.

Centuries ago, these had been exploited for their ice and extensively mined for whatever rare earth mater could be found there. Since the Great Day, they had been home for whoever had been able to escape the curtain of death that was then plunging the Blue Marble in eternal darkness.

It was not so shiny either on the roaming bits of planetoids, though life has sustained. The old mining camps had welcomed the multitude of refugees, enclosing them in the darkness of the tunnels.

Mac sometimes wondered what would have been to grow up on the Dark Marble, as earth had turned from lapis to obsidian.

He would have no much longer to wait before he could find an answer to his questions, seeing as he had been on his way to the dead planet and would soon reach the orbiting entry to Earth.

Mac remembered the journey quite well, in the small refurbished spacecraft. The stars had borne witness to the catastrophe many solar rotations ago. Humankind had flee its home planet as sure as they had tried to destroy it. Spaceships had left to try and reach the existing colonies in the Solar System.

Some had reached Kuiper area, among whom his great-grandparents. Other had stopped on Jupiter's satellite, on the mining fields through the Asteroid Belt, and on any other places they could try and inhabit.

It was the remnant of those errant ships Mac cleaned in his daily occupation. His job had exposed him to the solitude of the stellar void. It also had given him the opportunity to keep in contact with the ancient technology, one that not many continue to study nowadays.

The voyage from Kuiper to Earth had lasted few weeks. A small crew in the small ship accompanied him, though Mac did not get much in contact with them. He had preferred to keep to himself. He would not see them once he would have reached Earth.

The crew was to drop him on the planet. Literally. In a capsule. Ejected, simply, in space, and expected to land on a place which coordinate had been extrapolated from a weird message received by Kuiper's Security Agency.

It had taken almost a year for the scientists to interpret and understand the incessant beeping that had been received on all communication tools at the time. People had thought the technology was dying on them, fearing the darkness would finally swallow them, as surely as it had swallowed all life on Earth.

The Security Agency, doubled as Government on Kuiper's Belt, had scoured for volunteers to effectively go on Earth and bring a message back there. There had been no return planned for the heroic chosen. Mac had received the request to endeavour the journey. The promise of a thousand star credits, had been quite enticing. The alternative of volunteering would have been to be relegated six feet under, in the darkest mining field penitentiary.

Few weeks after having received his marching orders, Mac had had the occasion to reflect on his short life. He would miss his sister. He hoped she would have a long life once the operation for her lung implants would be completed. Life on the icy colonies tended to get shortened by the atmospherically conditions, and Mac had welcomed the possibility for his sister to extend it with the surgery.

The small spacecraft was nearing Mars orbit. Strangely, Mac observed, despite the number of debris still littering the void between the planets, the travel had been smooth. Except, perhaps, for the crossing of the Asteroid Belt. When they had entered the Belt, the ship had been barely avoiding impacts. Mac had felt like dying more than once, hearing the deafening sound of the encounter with moving rocks. He could still feel the resulting tremors in his body days after.

In fact, there had been other close encounters of the sort, Mac recalled. One near Saturn's rings, more specifically...

Thinking back about those dreadful moments, Mac had been almost rejoicing as they approached his final destination.

The crew had been cautious during the bumpy ride. They had been even more cautious once crossed over. It was their first time on this side of the Belt. The KSA had provided them with credentials to contact the colony on Mars, though none was confident they would receive any answer from it.

As it occurred, the Mars Agency had been expecting the passage of the mission on its orbit. They had sent a pilot aboard, to help with manoeuvres around Earth orbit. It appeared that Mars colony had retained more of the technological knowledge than on the mining camps at the end of the Solar System. Mac realised how few he knew about the Catastrophe. About the message. How poorly he had been prepared for this mission.

With the presence of the pilot, and as they were nearing the obsidian planet, Mac had tried to fill in the blanks. He re-read the documents the Agency asked him to study, taking notice of the small details for the first time. The location of the coordinated, the content of the message, information about Earth political struggles before the Catastrophe... details that probably would not have mattered in the long run.

What Mac did not find in those notes was an explanation of the darkness on Earth. He had overheard a discussion between the pilot and the crew. They had been jesting around, comparing in a friendly manner their experience of carting cargo on one side or the other of the Belt. At a time, the pilot had mentioned the Dark side of the Moon, précising that, since the Catastrophe, there had been a need to precise which one it had been. Between the Dark side and the Darker side of the Moon, which one was the once facing Earth, Mac had wondered.

The fated moments had come too soon, for Mac had been starting to lose his nerves. The spacecraft was approaching the position on Earth orbit that would be his point of entry to the unknown. The planet appeared to be confined in a dark cloud. As he approached, Mac could see the cloud was in fact a mix of debris tightly set in the low orbit. Here and there, a gap was showing patches of green and blue.

Mac had not much time to think about the mystery of the colourful Earth, as he was rushed in his capsule. The crew had convinced him he would not feel any different than what he had experienced during the journey from Kuiper.

Mac had hoped he would not have to go through another death ride, feeling his bones shattering has rocks and debris crashed against the hull of his small spaceship. He had almost lost it during the crossing of the Asteroid Belt.

His descent to Earth was far worse.

He was on his way to Hell. Praying for Death to come and pick him fast.

*-*-*-*

Mac was reduced to a puddle of slime. He felt like his body lost any consistency. Was he finally dead? His soul wandering around. The warmth and coldness combined. Heavy and light at the same time. He felt confused. Lost.

Was he dead?

"He's coming back!" The voice was soft to Mac's ears. Almost calming.

Slowly, he opened his eyes. An old man was kneeling beside him. A single source of light bringing a shine to his white hair.

The room around him was unfamiliar. No window, one lamp. One kneeling sweet old man, and a frightening tall figure standing on the back. Mac could see, could feel two green orbs drilling holes in him.

With a curt nod, the tall man left the room, pausing at the door a moment. The movement brought Mac to observe the place in more detail. The walls seemed to be made of one bloc of rock. No brick, no wood, just a smooth surface not different than the ones forming the living space back in Kuiper camps.

"Where..." The old man put a hand on Mac, as if to ask him not to talk much. Mac's throat was burning with the words crowding and asking only to exit his parched mouth.

"Don't talk yet, young one." Mac observed, puzzled, as the man extended his arm. In his hand, he had a tin can filled with a brown liquid. "Please, drink. I will explain."

"You have been found almost a week ago, in a pile of crumpled metal, just outside our camp."

As he listened the old man giving him details of the way he had been found, Mac brought the strange liquid to his mouth. The smell was distasteful though the taste sweet with a hint of spice. The man continued to explain the situation, his role of healer, the camp hidden in the ground, information about the daily life of the small group living in those caverns.

A comment in passing about how a group of hunters found him in a location they usually avoided had Mac interrupting the older man. Now that the strange soup had settled his stomach and warmed him a bit, he was burning with curiosity.

"What about hunters? Is life... outside..." He could not form his sentence, the words rushing to get out, though the healer understood and spiced his explanation with more details. The conversation continued on the same pattern, Mac asking his questions in two or three key words and the man providing adequate answers.

After a moment, the tall man from earlier came back into the room, conferring in low voice with the older man. Mac could not hear a word of what was said. The taller man glancing in his direction as he was talking, however, was a dead sign of whom the subject of the discussion was.

The following days settled Mac in a routine similar of his first day after awaking. Zhu, as the old man asked him to call him, came three times during the day with a tray of food, some dry bread, and drier meat, and a cup of brown soup.

How Mac could tell days passed, he still wondered. There were no time measurement pieces in the room, no water clock, or other type of mechanical clock for that matter. Not even a measured candle. The settings of this camp seemed so primitive to Mac, he would not have been surprised to learn they were calculating the time passing based on the rotation of the planet.

The tall man was visiting every night, or what time Mac had assimilated as the end of the day. As his habit, he talked with Zhu and glanced at Mac, never addressing him directly.

After a week of this regimen, Mac was up. To his surprise, his landing, or more accurately, his crashing on Earth did not seem to leave too many sequels. With his health came back his recollection of his mission. He needed to find this Eden place and give the answer from the Kuiper Security Agency. He needed also to let know the KSA that he was alive and completed his mission.

Enjoying his regained mobility, Mac started to explore the camps. The maze like caves were quite similar to the mines at home. The technology, however, was less present.

The technology was only less apparent, in fact, as Mac found one day as he followed Zhu. A soft chime was coming from his wrist. Zhu made a small gesture with his hand and the chime stopped, replaced by voices. Turning around, Mac searched for the newcomers. They were only the two of them in the gallery, Zhu and himself. Puzzled, he observed the older man attentively. The healer was having a conversation with an invisible guest.

The same way he learned the technology they used here was miniaturized, he came to know the group of hundreds living in this camp where not a regular colony. By accident.

On a rare day he was left alone to explore the compound, Mac stumbled across a metallic door that, surprisingly, made no noise when he tried to open it. Behind the door a large room with consoles aligned in the middle and large drawing boards on the walls reminded him the school rooms back home. At the diner, that night, Mac asked Zhu about the school system here and commented he had not seen any child in his exploring. Neither a woman, for that matter.

For the first time, the healer had no answer for him. Zhu refused to provide any information about the children and the women on the camp.

The next day, the tall man woke him up. Disoriented and still sleepy, Mac followed him through galleries he never had taken so far. The way was going up, slightly, and he wondered if they were getting to the surface. Mac's questioning found answer a moment later as the man pushed him in front of him and through a small opening.

Racks of clothing and weapons were lining the walls of what seemed to be the antechamber to an airlock. The man stopped to pick a set of googles and a long yellow combination, and forced them into Mac's arms. The later understood the need to put the clothes on, the other man following suit.

Without a word, he guided Mac toward another small door and opened it. The two men stayed a short moment only in the airlock, waiting for the door to close in the back and the one in front to open.

As he exited under the natural light, Mac could not stop looking in all directions. Nature seemed to be thriving in this part of the planet. He turned to ask a question to the tall man when he spotted the riffle. Was there danger?

"Walk straight in the direction of the Sun. And fast!" The voice surprised Mac. He heard it but the other man was standing few feet away from him. It took him a minute, and a gest from his companion pointing to his googles, for Mac to understand a communication device was built in in the protective glasses.

Mac also realised it was the first time he heard the voice of the man. He knew now what he sounded like, but still no name.

"The rest of you ship is a good two hours walk from here, so get to it."

*-*-*-*

Mac had believed the walk to his capsule would be the end of him. During the walk, though, West, as the tall man was named, imparted some information.

"No children and no woman here." He had started with this, as an answer to the question asked the day before, as if he had been the one who had received the question.

"There are many camps in the region, with each thousands of people. There are women and kids there. Our base is more of a garrison. We ensure control of the zone."

Ads West explained the structure of the remnant of the society on this part of Earth, Mac absorbed the information. How could the security be separated from the rest, he wondered, and how would they integrate with the rest of the communities?

"Simple," West answered, "they contact us and we come. The camps are all connected in an underground network."

Before they reached the clump of metal that brought him on Earth, Mac obtained more answer to his questions. Answers about the social structure, the thriving nature on the surface, the supply of food and water to the camps.

One point remained obscure for him, however.

"As it seems life on the surface is back, that the condition for living outside are all there, why is it that you are still roaming the underground galleries?"

"We can't live up there anymore," West tried to explain. Mac could asked the healer for more information on the subject, if he wanted, the tall man added, although he could only confirm that but a small number could live on top, like the two of them.

"Perhaps Earth is letting us know She is not happy with the way we have treated her in the past..."

Back to the camp after having retrieved what could be salvaged from the capsule, Mac left to look for Zhu to ask him question about the mutations of the human body that prevented them to settle topside.

West, on his side, took the message and the pieces of equipment that had seemed still functioning to a group of scientist for further analysis.

That night, Zhu, West and Mac discussed the situation.

"... so, that is why you have white hair and clear colour eyes?" Mac was trying to make sense of what he learned, looking at Zhu for confirmation. "And it also explains why you cannot go on the surface?" "Does it mean that anyone with dark colour hair and dark colour eyes would have a better chance to survive up there?"

Mac's conclusion brought a small smile on Zhu's lips. "There is a bit of that, indeed," the healer's smile increased.

"So... why did you sent a message to the outer colonies?"

West's pensive eyes posed a long moment on Mac's agitated face. "It is a gamble, I'd say. I just hope She will forgive us..."

Mac almost did not hear the comment, asking whom this 'She' could be. The answer was lost, however, drowned by the chimes coming from Zhu's communication device.

"... the Earth"

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"...they say they need you." Mac explained to the group on the screen. "They need the support, they need the resources, the people... And they have much to offer in exchange..."

On the other side of the Solar System, the KSA members listened to Mac explaining the situation. They still looked surprised, using the video link for the first time in their life. They had only heard about its existence from word of mouth, the old scientists having explored the possibility of recreating the technology, though always failing.

Pointing at the man standing beside him whose deep green eyes radiated confidence, Mac continued. "This here is West, he will answer your questions about the situation, West, of Eden."